- Please tell us more about Escalent and your ambitions.
Escalent are a data analytics and advisory firm that helps clients successfully navigate disruptions in their business. While they’ve been serving the energy industry for 30+ years, we think it’s fair to say that the industry is currently weathering quite a bit of disruption from new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed energy resources (DER) and non-traditional competitors like automakers eyeing the energy market!
- What new developments in or outside of energy do you believe will be most influential in the transition to customer-centric energy ecosystems?
Other industries, notably tech and telecom (though I’m also considering online retailers like Amazon in the “tech” category), are shaping consumer expectations of their energy provider. Specifically, consumers want a personalized and responsive relationship with companies they do business with, and they’re increasingly interested in energy-related things like e-mobility and resilience.
These expectations are shaping what consumers are looking for; on the other side of the coin, advancements in AI and technologies like solar panels and lithium-ion batteries continuing down the manufacturing cost curve—and thus becoming more affordable to more consumers—will give energy companies, as well as companies that want to compete with incumbent energy companies, the ability to deliver compelling offerings to consumers.
- How are companies using innovation to become more sustainable?
A lot of the innovation in service of sustainability that we’ve seen has involved the application of new technologies to a questioning of the fundamental operations of the power grid. For example, virtual power plants turn on its head the assumption that utilities must simply follow customers’ load; technology that aggregates and controls that load with minimal impact on customers means that load can follow generation. That, in turn, makes it easier to incorporate a higher percentage of variable renewables in the grid’s generation mix.
Likewise, technology is enabling transmission lines to be “dynamically rated” rather than assuming a certain static rating that could artificially constrain the amount of power the transmission grid can deliver during certain times. Dynamic line ratings allow for greater utilization of existing assets, reducing the need to build additional (or reconductor existing) transmission.
- In your opinion, what innovations will have the biggest impact on the power sector in the next 30 years?
AI and machine learning, without a doubt. The grid is a complex system, and a household with solar, an electric vehicle (EV), a home battery, and a smart thermostat is complex. Being able to understand what’s important to a customer—comfort? environmental benefits? cost savings?—and seamlessly deliver it by engaging the various parts of the energy ecosystem is going to be a sea change in how we think about home energy.
- What lessons have you learnt about simplifying complex concepts/technologies for branding and communications?
- Honestly, 90% of it is just getting out of “jargon land.” There are a whole host of acronyms and phrases that those of us who work in energy use to signify being part of the “in” group. But using that language for a general audience immediately turns them off— because it’s expressly designed to! We need to step back and consider what makes sense to the average person in order to bring them into the conversation. It’s ultimately about being clear and conveying to people what benefits they will personally get from the technology.
- What do you think are the main challenges for energy companies regarding branding and communication?
It depends on which energy company we’re talking about. For regulated utilities, the biggest challenge is the engineers. This is not intended as a knock on engineers—I have a great deal of respect for what they do, and they’re critical for a functioning grid—but a reflection that power engineering has a lot of the jargon I mentioned previously and engineers tend to hold a lot of key positions in regulated utilities. It’s absolutely critical to take that step back and think about how complex engineering concepts can be distilled into simple and straightforward consumer language.
For retail energy companies, the biggest challenge is differentiation. Ultimately, they’re selling the same commodity and people expect a certain level of customer service from any company they do business with. So, you have to ask yourself, what sets one retailer apart from another? It’s been exciting to see a number of retailers start to differentiate themselves on the product front, namely offering different ways for customers to utilize their energy assets through “virtual power plant” type programs.
Last, but certainly not least, is the impact of higher energy cost on consumers. It’s difficult to maintain a strong brand without doing something different when customers are regularly getting “bill shock.” Energy companies that have responded effectively to higher prices have increased their customer communications and provided actionable information on things like programs that help their customers feel like they are in more control of their energy bill.
- What are you most looking forward to this year at CHARGE?
I’m really excited to be co-leading a sustainability communications workshop with my colleagues Kea Wheeler and Nikki Stern. Kea and Nikki are absolutely fantastic people and experts in their respective domains (workshop facilitation and sustainability, respectively). But it’s not just getting to do this with my colleagues that excites me. Like I said, the industry is going through a significant transition and is both becoming more sustainable and needing to accelerate the pace towards true sustainability. When we talk about “communicating complexity,” this is certainly right in the thick of complex subjects. So, I’m looking forward to the dialogue with other attendees on how we can all do better at this.
- What can participants of your workshop “Empathetic energy conversations: Navigating sustainability with customers” expect to learn?
We’re going to provide a quick fly-through of different customer personas and how they think about sustainability, along with sustainability trends impacting the broader consumer landscape and energy sector specifically. But most of our time will be spent co-creating messaging with participants to reach these different customer personas. Participants will be able to return from CHARGE with some specific messages they can deploy in their businesses to help bring their customers along on whatever sustainability journey they’re on.
We’re a data analytics and advisory firm that helps clients successfully navigate disruptions in their business. While we’ve been serving the energy industry for 30+ years, I think it’s fair to say that the industry is currently weathering quite a bit of disruption from new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed energy resources (DER) and non-traditional competitors like automakers eyeing the energy market!
